WebliminalBlog

Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream: A Day in the Life of Your Body

Ackerman takes you through a day starting with a detailed description of waking in the morning and finishing with just as detailed a description of going to sleep in the evening. Throughout she mixes observations, quips, and the reports of scientific studies to keep the reader interested and entertained. Here’s an example: “It’s true the brain is good at processing sound while we sleep; that’s why we buy audible alarm clocks. We don’t buy odor alarms for equally good reason. Though some people swear they are aroused from deep sleep by the putrid stink of skunk or the heady aroma of percolating coffee, a new study suggests otherwise: Scientists at Brown University documented a complete failure of response during all but the earliest phase of sleep to powerful odors such as peppermint and the distinctly noxious pyridine, a component of coal tar often used as a herbicide for firewood. Don’t count on the nose as a sentinel system, say the researchers: “Human olfaction is not reliably capable of alerting a sleeper.”